Day 6 – Horsham to Benalla – 185km (including 20km time trial)

Backing up today was tough. Before we got on our bikes today we had 840km in our legs and 5 long days which as you probably get the gist by now include a LOT more than bike riding. Finishing today…a further 185km puts us well over the 1,000km mark – something unprecedented in my lifetime. If someone had told me 10 years ago, Gareth you will ride a push bike 1,000km in 6 days, I would have thought they were absolutely nuts as you probably think I am right now, however its funny how when you commit and just do it, it becomes the ‘new normal’. We still have a further 550 odd km and some serious mountain climbing to go so the weekend will be interesting. I’m now utterly convinced its mind over matter. Your mind gives up far easier than your body so it best just to ignore whats going on in your head and get on with it. I felt this today after knocking out our first 65km, we did a team time trial over 20km. For those who don’t know what this is, it is when you work as a team to go as fast as you can over a set distance. You ride in a single line, drafting and rotate the lead to ensure you maximise your overall effort. Team CommBank did a cracking effort today….I genuinely don’t believe we could have gone any faster, we sucked out every last morsel of potential energy in our team and worked together the whole way. The girls led us out (Heidi and Rachelle) which I purposely planned as we didn’t need any crazy testosterone propelling us too fast at the start resulting in us blowing up before we finished. I rocked in at 3, the twin towers, Dave and Tim behind followed by Michael and Danny. Needless to say the afternoon was hard after all the energy we had spent in the time trial and fought some punishing headwinds for the next 3 hours to take us to a very late 3.30pm lunch which also didn’t help energy levels.

One thing I’m really quite stoked about is the number of people that have commented as to how impressed they are with the CBA team. I have had a number of comments on our team work which was fully demonstrated this evening when coordinating 2 motels worth of laundry across one laundromat and random rooms which had washing machines in the 3rd motel. This would make for an interesting Corporate team building exercise in its own right. Did I mention that we did chores each night as well? Yes, throw that in the mix as well. We coordinated laundry whilst hosting and eating dinner…what a versatile team.

School first up this morning was Horsham primary and what a majestic little school it was. We did a number of Channel 7 crossings with the kids. I managed to ride a few of the kids bikes with them this morning which was quite challenging. These things are not much bigger than what my 4 year old Lucas rides. The kids got right into “Be fit, Be healthy, Be happy” this morning and the screaming was reminiscent of a womens netball match in one of those small indoor arenas – in other words deafening. I think Beretts was feeling it this morning…his days start a lot earlier than ours and the kms are adding up. We managed 3 schools in all today….I could be a teacher I reckon, that would be a very rewarding and fulfilling profession. I love seeing how the kids soak up everything you throw at them and they are very adaptable. The innocence of their questions and their curiosity is infectious. Its also amazing how they will just say what they think and not be guarded in their responses like a number of adults. We layer on all our defensive layers over the years and then once we start to gain some meaningful self awareness, start peeling them back again. Wouldn’t it be nice if we as a society didn’t judge so early, it might make things a little easier down the track.

Community dinner this evening was at the Benalla Bowling Club which was fun although unfortunately tonight, I couldnt get much time with the locals (including CBA branch reps) as I’d have liked…we were run off our feet.

I’m off to bed. 5am start, more crossings however only 140km tomorrow…should be a walk in the park 🙂 taking us into the foothills of the mountains…

Pretty in pink photos – our TDC $10m jersey – see my blog yesterday – school shots and of course the CBA time trial team afterwards

kids